Book of Chad

I was a bit nervous going into this race. I knew that I was close to coming away with an overall podium; however, it was pretty hotly contested based on this race offering double points. I have had some bad experiences at Hammerhead in the past years. A year ago, I was doing an enduro here and managed to break my collarbone and get a really bad concussion. The year before that, at the XC race, Lindsay managed to fall on a bridge and break her hand. I felt I could not take any chances in the race, given that I don’t have time to get healthy before Single Track 6. However, I really did want to secure that podium. I was feeling pretty good coming into the race and knew that if I was able to hit the climbs hard enough, I could focus on staying smooth on the downs and keeping the bike upright. The course this year was very similar to last year’s course; however, the windy climb trail and the flatter single track transition to that trail had been replaced by one continuous long fire road climb. Although it’s daunting to stare down three minutes of fire road followed by another two minutes of single track climbing per lap, I think it suits me compared to my rivals. The course itself was quite short, meaning that the regular three laps would be doubled to get the race time and distance. The biggest issue with this for the expert group is that with the short laps, it doesn’t take long until we are lapping riders in the shorter races, and the speed differences can be quite significant. I have to say everyone was incredibly good at pulling over and letting me through. I am sure it can be quite annoying when you’re racing your own race and someone is breathing down your neck and you need to stop and let them by, but it was really nice not to lose a lot of time in traffic.

We lined up for the start and the first phase went well. I lost a bit on the latter part, and I watched Scotty Mitchell zoom by to enter the single track right ahead of me. Scott hadn’t raced XC yet this year, and I think he has been focused more on fishing than bikes lately, so it was good to see he still felt competitive. It didn’t take long until that started to catch up to him, and with me on his wheel recovered from the first effort, I asked for a pass, and he promptly let me by. At the end of the first lap, I was in 5th, with Jamie Levett, another guy with me as we entered the fire road. At the end of the fire road, it was just Jamie and I.

We stayed stuck together like glue for the whole of the second and third lap, and on the third lap, we had a bit of a chat on the fire road. I told him I am happy to let him go ahead if he wants to, or I am also happy to have him follow the whole time, as my race wasn’t with him. I just didn’t need to fight with him for position in a way that could slow us down. He seemed super happy with that and said he would like to go ahead on the next down and maybe we could trade back and forth. We met traffic on the next downhill right as we were getting to a place we could sensibly trade places. He got a little held up and I led with a small gap all the way to the fire road. He pulled ahead on the fire road and I slotted in behind him. It was getting very hot at this point and I unzipped my jersey, took in fluids and a gel. When we hit the slightly steeper area, he started to pull away a bit, and as we entered the single-track portion of the climb, he basically disappeared.

The next two and a half laps remaining, I was alone other than lapping traffic. I really focused on keeping smooth in the downs and saving energy for the climb. And that’s how it went; fairly metronomic from then on. I did look back a lot to see if anyone was gaining on me, and I never did see a competitor from my division behind me after the first lap. When I exited the last single-track section of the last lap and pointed uphill on the fire road, I could see Lindsay off in the distance. We had talked the night before about whether I could lap her or not, and now was my chance. She was definitely taking it easy, as she was also not able to afford a crash and was already secured in her series overall win. I caught her just before the line, and our friends on the sidelines were yelling and cheering quite loudly, which I think confused her for a second, and she stopped pedaling. I gave her a slight shove over the line, and she started her last lap about a wheel length before I finished.

Time: 1:20:53
Distance: 24.0 km
Avg Heart Rate: 187 bpm
Max Heart Rate: 194 bpm
Normalized Power: 255 W
Place: 6 th